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Mapping Human History Through Media
Mapping Human History Through Media
Animated insight for how area of interest changed over time and what media were used to record history of human during the time
Human history has been recorded using various media over decades. With the evolution of archival technology, history started to be written in a different way from the past. Human history is not only ‘WRITTEN’. Rather it is ‘PICTURED’ in various form.

Area of focus has gone through changes overtime. Some period of time, for example, Europe was the place to be recorded. Then it moved to North America, Asia and so on.

The changes over time by locations and media form is animated to capture the overall trend and to get a quick insight through the animation, helping to get a general insight of the change.
“An image tells you more than a book of paragraph. As a film reel rolls human history flows over time.”
More than 3,000 archival materials were tracked and analyzed from Smithsonian museum of Human History Film Archive.

If the archive represent a film of human history of the time, individual pieces collectively forms the entire body.
Film archives are distributed through out 6 different continents.
The source of each archival material is illustrated by the dots on this map.
Regional Distribution of Film Archive
Number of Record by continent
Continent of interest overtime

Which Continent has more archives

Less More
belong to with the number of record, 997. Over the last 150 years of human history on film archive.
with the number of record, 185.

1870s

300 Archives

Africa,Asia,North America,Central America

Photography is the main source of medium
Usage of diffent media over time
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Size Legends
--More Archival volume --Less Archival volume